So you spent $200, maybe even $300+ on your awesome, beautiful, life-saving climbing rope and after countless adventures you now have a large lump of retired 60 meter rope collecting dust in your garage. Why not give your rope a new life? There are many fun and creative ideas for a crafty individual to turn his/her old rope into a new and useful product. Just Pet Products has taken that strategy to give our pup, Bentley, and others like him high quality handmade and unique leashes and collars. As we grow, we’ll likely expand that offering to include other cool pet products (highlighted below). The sky is the limit for what you can do with yours.
We’ve brainstormed and highlighted some ideas that we’ve found to be the most creative and/or practical. Let us know what you think!
- Pet products (obviously!) – Dog leashes, collars, slip leads, harnesses, chew toys (tug of war!)
- Door mat – Your colorful climbing rope could turn in to a great conversation starter that welcomes guests to your place
- Picture frames – You can make a TON of picture frames. Have some awesome adventure photos lying around? Why not cut strips of your climbing rope
- Furniture – I know what you’re thinking… “What?” but we’ve seen some pretty creative pieces that people have made. Check out some examples
- Decorate a bottle - Think wine bottle holders, plant pots, flower vases, beer koozies… pretty much anything you can cleanly rap the rope around to make a creative cover
- Jewelry – We’ve seen quite a few creative necklaces, bracelets and
- Horse halters – Sticking to the animal theme. Kind of a niche market, but hey… we love animals
- Ladders – Make a cool entrance to a tree fort, or a roll up emergency evacuation ladder.
- Hammocks – Take a nap in your backyard or on your next camping trip, dreaming about all those great climbs
- Utility ties – Not the most creative ideas, but the obvious use case could be for automotive or boat tie downs
- Donate – While Just Pet Products does donate a material amount of profits to local animal shelters and accept rope donations (and provide a $50 gift card as a thank you!) we are not a 501(c)3 organization. We have spoken with a couple of our rope suppliers and have heard great ideas for donations, including to the Boy Scouts of America, for rope tying practice, and local fire departments
Wait, how do I cut this? I know that your creative juices are now flowing, but before you pull out that knife, hacksaw or crazy big pair of scissors, please make sure you properly think through how to cut your rope. Rope cutting was a big consideration for us at Just Pet Products when thinking through how to most efficiently and effectively preserve the integrity of the rope while cutting. Preserving the integrity of the rope may not be as important when repurposing, but we’ve found our technique to also be clean and effective.
We’ll order from cheapest to most expensive (Disclaimer: these are only suggestions that we have either tried or had recommended to us. Please do not attempt to do anything unsafe or that you do not feel comfortable doing):
- Grab a knife you don’t care about (e.g., it may be permanently damaged). Make sure that it is long enough to keep your hand away from an open flame and a handle that does not conduct heat. Carefully place the blade over an open flame to heat (kitchen stove, torch, etc). Once very hot, slowly cut through your rope. Make sure you’re cutting on a safe surface. The climbing rope should cut smoothly and ends on both sides seal with the heat.
- Don’t want to ruin your butcher knife? That’s fair. We ruined one of ours during prototyping. You can try out a “hot knife”. While we skipped straight to option 3, we have read various forums that suggest a hot knife as a fantastic solution for climbing rope cutting. Check them out on Amazon or eBay and make sure to read the reviews as quality variance can be material.
- Commercial grade electric rope cutter. This probably should only be purchased if you’re planning to make repurposing climbing rope a more common practice. These devices can be screwed to your table top can heat to 1200 degrees Fahrenheit in less than 10 seconds.
We hope you found these tips and suggestions helpful. Please check out our recycled climbing rope products at Just Pet Products.